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Last week 21 troopers from the Massachusetts State Police were investigated for overtime fraud. Basically they’d been taking extra shifts to hand out tickets on the Mass Pike, but instead of showing up they’d write tickets the day before and date them for the days they were supposed to work overtime. Then they just wouldn’t show up that day. In other words, they were committing larceny and stealing from the taxpayers. Then this happened:

Patch: Nine of the 19 State Police members for which hearings were scheduled in connection with the agency’s internal probe chose to retire between last Tuesday and last Friday, the State Police announced at 7 p.m. on Friday. Nine more were suspended without pay.

“The next step here is the criminal investigation by the attorney general which should figure out whether or not in fact this is stealing,” Gov. Charlie Baker told reporters Monday from the South Bay shopping center in Dorchester.

Stop right there. Why are these criminals being allowed to retire and walk away from this? If a citizen steals something over $250 it’s a felony. It prevents them from gaining employment in the future. It follows them around the rest of their lives. If you steal enough money you can end up in jail.

Meanwhile these people were stealing tens of thousands of dollars a year from the taxpayers. What makes it worse is they were given the one thing money can’t buy – trust. We trusted them to enforce the law because we assume they abided by the law. But it turns out they were just dirty, greedy cops. Ratchets with badges. And now they’re being allowed to just walk away and collect pensions for the rest of their lives.

What a fucking joke.

To make matters worse, they were trying to cover it up too. Troop F gets paid by Massport, but……

The Massachusetts Port Authority, which pays Troop F, did not file payroll records with the state.

“Massport made a mistake,” Baker said.

Oops!! No big deal. They just forgot to file payroll records. It’s not like Massport has a duty to be transparent or anything like that. It’s not like their funding comes from the taxpayers via federal grants. Oh wait, yes it does:

As a self-sustaining entity, the Authority relies on revenue collected from airline fees, parking fees, terminal, ground and other rents, concessions, and other fees to fund operating expenses. Operating revenues along with federal grants, passenger facility charges (PFCs) and customer facility charges (CFCs) fund capital expenditures. 

And that’s the reason why it costs an arm and a leg to park your car at Logan. Because someone has to pay these hacks these salaries:

But God forbid one of those six figure buffoons actually do their job and record how much they’re paying state troopers.

Finally the numbers were released yesterday….

At least 79 percent of the 142 troopers assigned to the division in 2017 made more than Baker, who earned nearly $152,000 last year. And 14 Troop F members earned more money in overtime pay than their base salary. Trooper Thomas Coffey earned the most at $351,773 – more than $137,000 came from overtime and nearly $50,000 in “other pay.” Trooper Neil Calnan earned more than $157,000 in overtime for a total salary of more than $309,000.

“There’s a limit on how many hours they can work. They can’t work more than 85 hours per week, but as part of the Colonel’s review of all overtime, across State Police, that’s one of the issues she’s looking into,” said Baker. 

You can’t be serious. $350K!!!! To be a public servant. Look, I’m all for paying cops well, but that’s an insane amount of cash. More importantly, how many hours a week are you working to make that much money? A hundred hours? How is that not a safety issue? Pilots are required by law to get a certain amount of hours of sleep. Isn’t it in the best interest of the public to have state troopers who have done the same?

Look, we will always back the police at Turtleboy Sports. But there’s nothing worse than a bad cop. Not only do they make all state troopers look bad, they abuse the public trust. They’re also gonna hurt the 99% of troopers who aren’t up to no good, because this will almost definitely be brought to the bargaining table once their current contract expires. The 9 cops who gutlessly retired because they couldn’t face the music should be charged just like any civilian would for doing the same.